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3 Healthy Peanut Butter Smoothies for #PeanutButterDay

It’s National #PeanutButterDay! To celebrate, and to accommodate the fact that it’s January and we’re trying to eat healthy, I experimented until I found not one, but THREE great healthy peanut butter smoothies for you. Scroll down for other fabulous peanut butter recipes!

Healthy is also key around here right now–I caught a bad cold and it knocked me on my butt this week. Usually with something like this, I have some bad congestion, maybe a day of low grade fever that takes me out of work. This time I was out of the office for three days and almost a week later, I still feel like a stiff breeze might blow me over. I’d heard that my immune system would be suppressed while pregnant, but holy cow, I did not know it would be like this. Fingers crossed this is the only time I get sick while pregnant, because this is not fun.

Anyway! Smoothies can be an easy way to get nutrients in a fun, quick, and portable fashion; but they can also be stuffed with sugar and fillers. To avoid that, I chose unrefined sugars and less refined ingredients, so they retain more nutrients. Some of these ingredients are trendy ones that I haven’t used yet, but I liked them or wouldn’t have included them here.

I also madee it a point that only one of these includes banana. I like bananas just fine, but sometimes I get resentful when I taste a smoothie and it just shrieks BANANA. Let some other flavors have their turn! I pulled quite a bit from this article.

Healthier Ingredients

Peanut butter: I used peanut butter that has no added sugar or fat (it’s getting easier to find these days), which means it’s nothing but healthy fats and tons of protein and fiber. If you’re used to the added-sugar, added-fats version that most of us grew up on, more natural peanut butter might take some getting used to, but it works great in applications like smoothies where it all blends in anyway.

Honey: I tried raw honey here. Raw honey is unpasteurized, which preserves more of the nutrients. Unpasteurized food sometimes carries more of a risk of food poisoning, but honey is a naturally sterile food, so I didn’t worry about that here.

Cacao powder: The less processed version of cocoa powder, so it again retains more nutrients. As far as I can tell from The Internetz, cacao and cocoa powder can be used interchangeably. I actually used cacao nibs that I ground (first in the food processor, then in an old coffee grinder that we use for a spice grinder)–which is not technically cacao powder because the cocoa butter was not removed, but it worked great for smoothies.

Healthy Peanut Butter Smoothies Notes

To make it thicker: Use Greek yogurt instead of milk. Grind oats into powder and throw in a couple of tablespoons. Add a tablespoon of chia seeds. Use frozen fruit.

Make it creamier: Use banana, or avocado (this sounds like one of those certified Health Nut things, but I swear to you that once it’s blended in, you cannot taste the avocado. Nor does it turn your smoothie an unappetizing green). Or start with a creamier milk.

Make it thinner: Thin with milk. Let your frozen fruit thaw for a bit on the counter before blending. Use fresh (instead of frozen) fruit.